Andy Murray continued is terrible run this year on North American hard courts as he slumped to his third straight first round defeat. This time he was humbled 6-3 6-1 to the world number 35 Kevin Anderson in Montreal.

Murray was the two time defending champion at the Rogers Cup, having won in Montreal in 2009 and repeating his success in 2010, defeating Roger Federer in the final in Toronto.

The 6′ 8″ South African Kevin Anderson never allowed Murray into the match after the Scot made poor starts to both sets. The Scot served 5 double faults in 8 service games and won only 50% of his points behind his serve. Anderson on the other hand won 76% of his sevice points and converted 4 of his 5 break point chances. Murray did not break the South African’s serve all match.

In March he suffered first round losses to two Americans, first to Donald Young in Indian Wells and then to Alex Bogomolov Jr in Miami. Both Men were ranked outside the top 100, making this weeks loss to world number 35 Anderson not Murray’s worst result of a very up and down year.

On losing his first match back since Wimbledon (excluding the Davis Cup ‘exhabition’ matches), Murray said,

I’ve trained really hard to get ready for the tournament. I’ve always played very well here, I couldn’t get anything going. I started both sets really, really badly which doesn’t help against someone that serves like Kevin. I trained in Miami for two weeks before I came here on Thursday.